SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/22/2022 10:12 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “The Terror of the Father”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
17:5-6
Message of the verses: “5 While he was
still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them; and behold, a voice
out of the cloud, saying, "This is My beloved Son, with whom I am
well-pleased; listen to Him!" 6 And when the disciples heard this,
they fell on their faces and were much afraid.”
We
have been looking at this total section from Matthew chapter 17:1-13 which
teaches us that Jesus Christ is truly God incarnate. I know we are not to the end but this section
in verses 5-6 is a third confirmation of Jesus’ deity, which is the terror
caused by the intervention of the Father while Peter was still speaking. It was through the form of a bright cloud God
overshadowed the three disciples and spoke to them in a voice out of the cloud.
So to the testimony of the transfiguration
itself and the testimony of the two Old Testament saints was now added the
surprising testimony of God the Father.
John
MacArthur writes “Throughout the wilderness wanderings of Israel the Lord
manifested Himself through ‘a pillar of cloud by day to lead them on the way’
(Ex. 13:21; Nub. 9:17; Deut. 1:33).
Isaiah predicted that ‘when the Lord has washed away the filth of the
daughters of Zion, and purged the bloodshed of Jerusalem from her midst, by the
spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning, then the Lord will create over
the whole area of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day, even
smoke, and the brightness of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory
will be a canopy’ (Isa. 4:4-5). In his
vision of the last days John ‘looked and behold, a white cloud, and sitting on
the cloud was one like a son of man, having
a golden crown on His head and a sharp sickle in His hand. And another angel came out of the temple,
crying out with a loud voice to Him who sat on the cloud, ‘Put in your sickle,
and reap, because the hour to reap has come, because the harvest of the earth
is ripe.’ And He who sat on the cloud
swung His sickle over the earth; and the earth was reaped’ (Rev. 14:14-16).”
You
may be like me and wonder why MacArthur wrote this paragraph, but I think that
we will get his point, even if it will take a little. As we look at the light that he was
speaking of in this previous paragraph we can compare it to the bright cloud with which His Father overshadowed Peter, James, and John, and then He spoke to them in an
audible voice,…saying, ‘This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased;
listen to Him.!” In Matthew 3:17 which
is at the baptism of Jesus Christ, the Father said "This is My beloved
Son, in whom I am well-pleased."
The first was at the beginning of His ministry and this one is towards
the end of His ministry, and in John’s gospel we find another time that the
Father spoke, which is very close to the time when Jesus was to be crucified
for the sins of the world. "Father,
glorify Your name." Then a voice came out of heaven: "I have both
glorified it, and will glorify it again’" (John 12:28).
As
we have looked at these three times that the Father called Jesus His Son, we
can see that the Father declared Him to be of identical nature and essence with
Himself. Here are some verses that speak
of this truth: John 5:17-20; 8:19, 42;
10:30, 36-38. As we look through the
Scriptures we will find that frequently they refer to believers as children of
God, however they are adopted children, brought into the heavenly family only
through the miracle of His grace as seen in Romans 8:15, 23; Gal. 4:5; Eph. 1:5. Jesus is the essence of the divine nature, as
the apostles repeatedly emphasize, and they did that in verses like Rom. 1:1-4;
2 Cor. 1:3; Gal. 1:3; Eph. 1:3; Col. 1:3; 1 Pet. 1:3; 1 John 1:2; 2 John. Notice that all of these take place at the
beginning of the letters that the apostles wrote. They wanted to make sure this truth was seen
right away, and this surely is a very important truth to understand.
10/22/2022 10:43 AM
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